Ghana’s President canvases use of card readers in other countries

…Visits Prof Jega
From ROMANUS UGWU, Abuja
The President of Ghana, John
Mahama, has urged other developing
counties to emulate the quality of
technology the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) deployed
to organise the 2015 general
elections, describing it as the secret
behind the successes recorded during
the elections.



Speaking when he paid courtesy visit
to the chairman of the Commission in
Abuja, the Ghana President noted: “I
met Professor Jega, in his calm self
and gave me all the assurances that
this Commission was ready and that
we were going to have successful
elections. If you see me here today,
my presence in the Commission is
telling you our appreciation to
Professor Jega and members of his
Commission for what they have done
in terms of recent elections.
“I decided to come personally, when I
asked for the appointment, Professor
Jega and staff had offered to come
over to my hotel and I said no, I want
to pay you a tribute by coming here
personally to congratulate you and all
your commission.
“I believe that the role of the electoral
Commission is critical, is key in any
election, and in any election the role
that the electoral commission plays
as empire is what makes the election
successful or not successful by
building confidence in the process of
the election so that when election
outcome is declare, people as a result
of the confidence in the process have
to accept the result.
“That is why I think INEC has played a
very fantastic role and of course the
stakeholders, the political parties also
have a role to play. And this morning I
spoke to President Jonathan and I
commended him for the show of
statesmanship in not only conceding
but also calling his colleague General
Buhari in advance declaration of the
result to congratulate him. I think that
is a show of maturity and
statesmanship.
“But, of course, the pivotal role is the
one that was played by the electoral
Commission in terms of the weight
that was involved. I cannot imagine
the scale of what you have to do with
your electoral law within the region of
60 to 70 million voters, in Ghana we
talk of 12 million. It is a very
Herculean task if I compare that with
what you have to do here because, I
need to commend you even many
more times for the work that you did.
“This year we have several other
elections coming up in Cote d’Ivoire,
after that in Burkina Faso, after that in
Guinea and I think that everybody has
been watching as an example what is
going in Nigeria here. It sends a very
good signal to other countries that are
holding elections this year in the
ECOWAS sub-region to emulate what
has been done here.
“I think that there is a lot that many
countries can borrow from you in
terms of the roll out of technology,
provision of voters identification cards
and having distributed and the
equipment for reading those cards in
terms of authenticating the voter as
who they are actually are. There will
always be glitches with technology,
but I think this is the first step to go
for it and we can continue to improve
the technology so that we have
smoother elections.
“In the circumstances you faced, I
believed that you have done a very
good job. On behalf of all my
colleagues, the ECOWAS president I
congratulate you, your staff and to ask
you to keep it up. We believe that
Nigeria has done better and this
election has consolidated Nigeria’s
democracy in the ECOWAS community
states. We would continue to work
with you.
“AS President of Ghana, Nigerians and
Ghanaians are brothers and sisters.
We share the same values, we share
the same cultures, and so we would
continue to share experiences and I
believe that this victory of your is
much as ours. As I said, there is no
winner and there is no loser, the
winner is the Nigeria people. I think
that this is the time in Nigeria that
everybody, notwithstanding you
political party to put your hands on
deck to move forward Nigeria.
“Nigeria has a particular responsibility
in our sub-region because is the
biggest economy and I believe that
Nigeria has to carry that responsibility
to move our sub-region forward,” he
noted.
Responding, the INEC boss said: “It is
with great honour and privilege that I
behalf of members of the INEC
welcome His Excellency, President of
Ghana and chairman of the committee
of ECOWAS Heads of States, His
Excellency John Dramani Mahama for
this unique visit to our commission.
“We are overwhelmed by this show of
goodwill and courtesy because this is
the first time that we are receiving
such a high-level courtesy visit in this
commission. We are humbled and we
greatly appreciate this gesture of
goodwill and show of love which is
very significant in terms of promoting
unity, peace and co-existence and
deepening democracy in the sub-
region.
“Words cannot adequately express our
appreciation and our delight for what
is happening now and I want to say
that Nigeria as a member of the
ECOWAS, has a lot to do to contribute
to the progress, development, peace
and stability in the ECOWAS sub-
region.
“The ECOWAS no doubt has a
tremendous role to play in terms of
harnessing the resources and energy
of all the countries in the sub-region
in order to develop our region and to
ensure that we promote peaceful-
coexistence and also deepening our
development.
“We feel greatly honoured that in
Nigeria we have been given the
opportunity to contribute in the area of
election management for deepening
democracy in our country and we are
very happy and delighted the little we
have been able to do has been so
widely appreciated that this show of
goodwill and support and
encouragement is really so
overwhelming. We thank God almighty
for that and we thank your Excellency
for visiting us here today. We
welcome you more sincerely and
heartily,” he added.